Essay Example on Safe and Effective Care Management

Patient safety is one of the most heated topics in the world today. There are many issues that are linked to the patent safety and some of them are related to the activities of the nurses. Evidence shows that burses are at a key position to ensure the patient safety is achieved. There are specific safety strategies and interventions that help to meet the safety of the patients. The quality of healthcare is closely related to patient safety. In other words, if the healthcare services are of high quality, there is a high chance that the safety will be high. The standards of quality are defined in different ways and this is based on the healthcare services provided. Patient care is generally related to the activities that reduce the risk of patients getting exposed to adverse conditions that can lead to injuries or adverse conditions. The negligence of the medical practitioners can lead to death and injury of the patients.

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Overview of Patient Safety

In the treatment process, there are chances that's the patients can get exposed to worse or additional conditions. For example, during the surgery process, the doctors should use antibiotics and other medical procedures to prevent them from any extra infections. The use of crew resource management, bar coding and simulators are some of the ways that patient safety can be achieved. One of the main goals of patient safety is to reduce the chances for errors and to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the medical processes. Active failure is a common cause for harm to patients. However, reliable medical procedures can reduce errors and improve patient safety. Nursing is concerned with defining and measuring the quality of healthcare services. Therefore, in this essay, the focus will be on how the nursing profession can help to meet the patient safety conditions in the sector. The safe and effective care management is important because it helps the nurses to determine the steps they need to take to solve the daily challenges in their career. The population to be used in this study includes nurses and patients from mental healthcare centers. The NCLEX-RN examination blueprint offers guidelines on how the nursing profession can be improved by the use of better nursing practices. The relationship between the clinical issue and the safe and effective care management is that the mental health patients require extra attention to make sure that their environment is safe for them and for the rest of the patients and nurses.

Importance of the study

The study is of great importance to the nursing career and the mental health centers because it offers guidance on the ways through which the mental health centers can be made safer. The study looks at the risks that the centers are exposed to and how these risks can lead to harm on the patients and the staff. The nurses' role is to promote the outcomes of the treatment process by providing and directing nursing care activities in a way that assures the clients and the staff of a safe environment. The management of care can be achieved through several ways and one of them is giving advance directives to the patients to follow. The other one is continuity of care until the patients are ready to be discharged and the other one is acting as the advocate for the patients. Ethical practice and following the rights of the clients are also methods of care management. They should also follow the legal rights and responsibilities and maintain the confidentiality of the patients (Puskar, Rudolph & Shi, 2017). The care management process also includes safety and infection control. From the above analysis, it is easy to conclude that effective care management is essential in mental health centers, just like any other department.

If the safe and effective care management is not achieved, one of the risks is that the mental health patients will not be guaranteed of their safety as well as the people around them. Generally, the safety issues in the healthcare centers revolve around the interaction between the patients and the nurses and doctors. For example, the safety of the patients is considered to be high when they are not exposed to medical errors and adverse conditions that may arise from the medication. However, for mental health patients, their safety is complex because they also create an environment of risks like suicide, aggression, and self-harm (Slemon, Jenkins & Bungay, 2017). Therefore, if the clinical issue of safe and effective care management is not achieved in these centers, there is a high chance that the mental health centers will not safe enough for both the patients and the doctors.

Patient Population

The patient population to be used in the safe and effective care analysis include mental health patients, nurses, and psychiatrists. The clinical issue affects a wide range of people in healthcare and the results from this population will be considered to be a representative of the issues that affect the sector in different fields. The population affected by effective care management issues can be identified by analyzing the different ways through which care is provided in the healthcare centers. The current research shows that the safety of the stakeholders in the mental in-patient centers is paramount and attracts a lot of attention today. However, little has been done to ensure there is adequate safety in these environments. Nurses reduce the risks by taking the custodial role and protecting the interest of the patients (Slemon, Jenkins, & Bungee, 2017). However, the cultural values and differences may affect the implementation of this solution. The safe and effective care management strategies may face resistance from those whose culture creates a stigma against the mental health patients and those who have a different understanding of the nursing processes. The other possible impact of cultural differences is poor understanding and communication barriers.

Proposed Solutions

The proposed solution is to apply the NCLEX-RN examination blueprint to create a safer environment where the risks are minimal. The safe and effective care management strategies will involve an analysis of the risks associated with the mental health centers and how they can be minimized. According to Orazietti and Singh (2016), the preparations for safe and effective care management starts by analyzing the different ways in which patients and nurses are exposed to risks. The analysis is done to determine how prepared the healthcare and the individuals are. The proposed solution is to increase the number of staff members available at the inpatient centers for the mentally ill to help in dealing with any aggressiveness and self-harm risks. The staff should also be trained to ensure they can handle the patients with professionalism. As mentioned above, cultural differences may lead to poor coordination of the nurses and other staff members. It may also affect the general safety of the entire center. According to Jylha, Mikkonen, Saranto, and Bates (2017), the information culture in an organization affects the way nurses and other people in the healthcare center share information. If the culture of sharing information in the organization is poor, then there is a high chance that the safety of the stakeholders will be compromised. The adverse incidents may also happen without being detected.

The solution is to have a uniform way of sharing information and a culture of shared responsibilities among the stakeholders. Nurses should have accurate information about the patients and should share it freely. The other solution would be to ensure there is adequate vigilance to ensure that all staff works diligently and responsibly and that all medical procedures are followed. Any adverse events should be prevented and any negligence should be punished. One possible challenge likely to affect the efforts to implement the proposed solution is the ethical standards. Safe and effective care management requires a strict consideration of the ethical standards of the patients and nurses (Runciman, Merry & Walton, 2017). The ethical challenges can be reduced by training and holding sessions with the stakeholders to streamline the differences and to set guidelines that can ensure ethical operations.

Goals

The main goal of the safe and effective care management is to prevent the vulnerability of nurses and patients to adverse conditions. Increased safety can only be achieved if there is high-quality healthcare services. For example, when there is high-quality healthcare services, the chances for medical errors and negligence are low. The long-term goal is to improve the quality of healthcare services offered to mental healthcare centers. The short-term goal is to improve the communication to ensure there is a better coordination of treatment activities. The communication goal can be achieved through increased use of technology that can allow nurses to get access to the most relevant information (Kramer, Kinn, & Mishkind, 2015). For example, the use of electronic health records can increase the efficiency of medical processes.

Barriers

The implementation of the solutions is likely to be affected by several barriers. The first one is inadequate resources. The proposed solution requires an addition of staff members to offer better health care and to install better technology at the healthcare centers. The plan requires resources like money and time and these may not be readily available. Before the solutions are implemented, it is also important to carry out some research to determine the impacts of the proposed solutions and any possible negativities. The research may require resources that may not be available in the organization. The other possible barrier is poor support and resistance from the top management. For instance, the proposed technology meant to improve communication rely on the support of the top management to succeed. According to Kanwal, Zafar, & Bashir (2017), most of the information system projects fail because they do not get adequate support from the top management. The barrier of inadequate resources can be solved through lobbying for resources from diverse sources and well-wishers. The support of the top management can be increased through proper communication to clarify the need to improve the safe and effective care management.

Benefits

The proposed solutions will have benefits to both the nurses and the patients. One of the benefits to the patients is that it will increase the accuracy of the treatment process, reduce the chances for errors and improve the reputation of the healthcare center. Healthcare professionals can improve the quality of their services when they work in teams (Okuyama, Wagner & Bijnen, 2014). The proposed solutions can increase the team-work and reduce the cultural barriers among the employees. The other benefit affects the nurses, whereby the proposed solutions will increase their accuracy and reduce negligence liability. The improved technology use and sharing of information will improve the decision-making process. When there is a shared decision-making, the chances for making errors are low (Durand, Moulton, Cockle, Mann & Elwyn, 2015). The overall performance of the healthcare services will improve.

Participants

The implementation of the solution will include several people from outside the nursing profession and the first one is an IT specialist. The advantage of including the specialist is that the proposed technology will be implemented successfully and the chances of failure will be low. The other one is a management expert whose work would be to manage the resources offer managerial support to the proposed changes. Project management involves managing change to reduce resistance to change (Alias, Zawawi, Yusof,...